AG Photographic

My stuff arrived Monday. Contact print is decent and negs are clean part from the scratches which I think are from the camera somewhere.
 
Sent my film to AG last week,received confirmation e-mail in two days saying into lab,today e-mail saying dispatched. Excellent,very pleased with that service.
 
I sent them two rolls of C41 and one of E6... like a berk I paid for 3 C41s by mistake :/ They were very nice and let me off - will be sending them more when I can!
 
Yep. Just bought some developer, 3days. Pretty good.
5 Rolls C41. Back in the usual 10 days including scans. Super quality.
Still happy with them.
 
3 rolls posted to AG this morning :eek: Including one trying their new hand-printed contact sheet service, after recent reports I'm expecting good things.
 
After receiving my roll back from the 36exp challenge, I was pleasantly surprised to see that AG had given me 2 contact prints, one high contrast and one low contrast to try and help cut through the base fog of the mildly expired film. The contact prints are very nicely done, on lovely matte paper. Would recommend the contact sheet service.
 
Got a few rolls to send are they still taking forever or do peak get another order from me
 
dave clayton said:
Got a few rolls to send are they still taking forever or do peak get another order from me
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I'll let you know in a few days/weeks/months (please delete as applicable)
 
I'm still waiting for my scans from a couple of weeks ago :-/ Hopefully soon. They turn around the negs quite quick usually though.

I have sent a couple of rolls to UK Film Lab today so will see how I get on there. It's not really that much extra and Iv heard / read a lot of good stuff on them
 
I've mailed uk film lab today if they can get the negs back to me rather than them keeping em I will use them but rather have my negs in my filing system than in a lab someplace
 
dave clayton said:
I've mailed uk film lab today if they can get the negs back to me rather than them keeping em I will use them but rather have my negs in my filing system than in a lab someplace
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I think someone else said they enclose a stamped addressed envelope with their film and get the negs back no worries...
 
That was me, they seemed ok with it.

I think they are used to dealing with / targeting volume professional shooters who will stack up an inch of negatives very quickly.
 
Got my slides from the Edinburgh meet back and a roll of Portra for POTY back in less than 7 days from post box to door. And they send me an envelope for next time which is a bonus when you're as lazy as me!
 
UPDATE!

Films received in lab. Hurrah!
 
Just got an email from AG

Dear Nick,

We want to let you know that your order ******** status has been updated to...

DISPATCHED

:clap::clap::clap::banana::banana::banana:
 
RaglanSurf said:
Dear Nick,

We want to let you know that your order ******** status has been updated to...

DISPATCHED

Maybe tomorrow we'll put your negatives in an envelope. That said, it looks as though it could be quite a nice day tomorrow so we might not make it to the post office but go to the park and play football instead. Still, at least we've updated the status on the computer and that's one step forward, right?
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:whistle:
 
My negs and contact sheet arrived back yesterday so that's 10 days door to door. Assessment of their dev'ing and contact print later when I've had a chance to check them over.
 
RaglanSurf said:
Just got an email from AG

Dear Nick,

We want to let you know that your order ******** status has been updated to...

DISPATCHED

:clap::clap::clap::banana::banana::banana:
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I had that today Nick on the Provia I sent away for Asha(damnation) means it will come back. :)

If it is received tomorrow then that will be an eight day turn around including a weekend,it seems to be getting better.(y)
 
I just received back a massive (by my standards - 14 rolls) dev/scan order from them which was a mix of 35mm, 120, B&W, C41 and slide. I expected a long wait but it was nearly a month. When I chased they said they were waiting for slide mounts to arrive from Germany, which is fine, but it would have been better if they'd got in touch first, rather than me having to chase. Anyway, I'm very happy with the results, and the prices are good, but the customer service isn't top notch and they can be slow. I'm happy enough to continue using them...if they were a bit faster they'd be epic, but I can live with that.
 
I posted two rolls of 120 (C41 & E6) to AG on the 10th, got an email on the 11th to say they had received them and got them back in the post today so not a bad turnaround.

Last time I spoke to them they said that they do C41 runs every day due to the volume but only do E6 runs twice a week so I normally expect E6 to take a little longer.

Now I just need to scan them tonight! Looking at the slides, I think my Cokin P filter holder is going to need to be trimmed back as it's visible on a lot of the shots when it was rotated. That's the problem with using the Prism Finder over the WLF, I'd have seen it in the 100% coverage of the WLF :0(
 
Well, I've just started scanning my AG processed films and my first thoughts of AG's service are

Turn round time 10 days, not as bad as I feared but still too long for me, I'm far too impatient.

Quality of the processing is very good, all the negs are clean and mostly dust free and free from any drying marks. Although I'm disappointed that the negs have been delivered in non standard neg files, so won't fit in Kenro binders.

The contact print from the roll of Lucky 100 is acceptable, it's been printed on matt paper and I would have preferred gloss but that's just a personal thing, if anything it's a little dark but overall it's ok for a contact, not sure it's worth the extra to have a traditional contact, I've just created my own in Lightroom and even though the files haven't been tweaked at all the overall impression is that there are better range of tones and better contrast.

Just scanning the colour negs now so I'll edit this once I've had a good look at them.
 
stevelmx5 said:
Impatient Nick? I thought the beauty of film was the thrill of the chase and waiting with excitement to see if your entire roll is blurry...maybe you should shoot digital instead ;0)
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I could cope with the wait when I was sending Kodachrome off to Switzerland but when the likes of Peak and The Darkroom usually have a 3 or 4 day door to door service 10 days just doesn't do it for me.

I think if I was more organised and didn't need to get my stuff back for entry into the latest challenge or POTY comp then maybe those 10 days wouldn't be such a deal breaker, but since I'm never going to be organised it will have to be the quicker alternative even if it does cost me more.
 
The slow turnaround is why I tried ilford. Think I'm going to stick with them And use ukfilmlab for multiple films.
 
I also posted 3 C41 films off to Genie Imaging this week. Posted Tuesday, confirmation of receipt email on Wednesday and an email received today to say my films would be back in the post this afternoon, that seems like good communication and very quick turn round time to me. I'll report back on the quality of processing when I get them back.
 
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Are you getting scans from Genie, Nick? I'm interested to know their quality. That's where my next E6 film is going... although I don't actually have one to shoot yet!

Maybe we should have an Agfa Precisa challenge?
 
ChrisR said:
Are you getting scans from Genie, Nick? I'm interested to know their quality. That's where my next E6 film is going... although I don't actually have one to shoot yet!

Maybe we should have an Agfa Precisa challenge?
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No Chris, I always scan my own stuff at home. I'll let you what the processing quality's like.
 
Do you let AG know when you need them? I put a note saying I needed mt films back for a project and they were pretty quick.
 
medwaygreen said:
I had that today Nick on the Provia I sent away for Asha(damnation) means it will come back. :)

If it is received tomorrow then that will be an eight day turn around including a weekend,it seems to be getting better.(y)
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Received and it looks to be excellent quality,but,I will let Asha update you on that as I have just sent them to France.
 
Finally got my film back from Ilford. Same camera and guess what? No scratches! Not the camera's fault. It's AG scratching them. They're totally off my list now. It's one thing being slow but being slow and scratching the negs just isn't on.
 
srichards said:
Finally got my film back from Ilford. Same camera and guess what? No scratches! Not the camera's fault. It's AG scratching them. They're totally off my list now. It's one thing being slow but being slow and scratching the negs just isn't on.
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Interesting, given my experience with receiving scratched scans with them also.

I've also used my camera many times and had dev and scan with others and never seen any scratches.

I wish I'd never sent my negatives back to them for rescanning after that discovery. They claimed the scratches were on negatives (I couldn't see them but had no magnifier - some should have been large enough to see with the naked eye though, given how thick they were and their placement) and that they'd send them back. I never received my negatives back. They claim they sent them to the wrong address and that they never got returned to them from the post.

I've always had this nagging feeling that they just binned my negatives after I resent them so they couldn't be called up on it. There is no legitimate reason for the negatives not being returned to me as the address they supposedly sent them to had forwarding to my current address.

Pleased that many people have had a decent service since my problem, but I don't trust them one tiny bit any more, especially hearing someone else having this scratching issue.
 
I received my scans and prints back from from AG yesterday. I posted them on 11 September, so that's 19 days door-to-door. I sent one C41 120 film and ordered the medium level scan and a set of 5" prints on glossy paper. Total cost: £14.45.

I'm really happy with the development; the negatives look very clean and unscratched. The little prints are lovely and crisp. Obviously not as vibrant as the images on-screen, but a very good reproduction. I do love small prints :)

The scans are very good, but I prefer my own out of the V550. The AG scans seem to have a very similar colour balance and tonal curve to those produced by UK Film Lab, although I don't think they use the same scanning equipment (Noritsu vs Fuji Frontier). They have a high contrast, cool tone look that looks really great, but perhaps a little too cold and harsh after looking at the scans out of my V550 (Vuescan raw file --> ColorPerfect --> contrast boosted in Lightroom). This is complete personal preference, I know. I've attached a couple of examples. First image is the AG, second one out of the V550.

So overall, apart from taking a little longer than expected, very pleased with AG's service.

View attachment 21683


View attachment 21684
 
ChrisR said:
Are you getting scans from Genie, Nick? I'm interested to know their quality. That's where my next E6 film is going... although I don't actually have one to shoot yet!

Maybe we should have an Agfa Precisa challenge?
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If its any help I had some 120 scanned by genie. Photos aren't good (as per my usual standard), but I can post up their scans if it helps any.
 
Hi all on Talk Photography - It's Matthew here from Ag Photographic / Ag Photolab. I don't get a huge amount of time to post on forums, but we do read them and there are some points I want to address, which I hope you will find helpful. Firstly, thank you very much for the orders and business that you have sent us.

Turnaround
I know turnaround is not quick, and I know that there are faster labs out there (although we generally dispatch dev only C41 and B&W within 24 hours of receipt). However, my position when we started offering the lab services was that we had to get the quality and value for money right first - then speed. (I know some quality issues have been raised in this thread, and I'll address those below). Pointless of turning around quickly if the discerning customer (and virtually all film users are very discerning, understandably) is disappointed with the results. I'm an avid photographer and film user myself, and have been for many years both for personal and professional capacity. The problem we have is this - we have a lot of volume of work in the lab at all times and we are at capacity. Capacity of the lab relies of two things - equipment and, most importantly, people suitably experienced in operating the equipment. It takes a lot of experience to get the sort of print / scan balance consistency required for a proper professionally run photographic lab. Nick Howse, our lab manager and main printer, has been correcting and balancing photographs for 25 years, it's all he has ever done. Many people who used to work in photographic labs have either retired (in Birmingham 20 years ago, there were about 15 labs, now there are 2) or taken different careers. So we intend to expand our capacity as soon as we possibly can - I'm currently getting prices in on another Noritsu and I think we can improve it a lot.

Quality issues
There are reports of scratches in this thread. As I mentioned above, I am an avid film user and I use and have used a plethora of different cameras over the years. Here is an unarguable fact: Film cameras sometimes scratch films, regardless of the condition of the camera and regardless of what has happened with previous films. It's by far and away the most likely cause of a mark on films. With the best will in the world, grit and other abrasives will get into cameras and cause problems. So sometimes you will get a scratch on a film and the next film.....you don't. It's not the lab (or at least extremely unlikely). Someone above is complaining that we scratched the film, but Ilford didn't on the next film. Guess what - we have people call us here and tell us, "Oh 'X' Lab scratched my film" "I dont think they are a very good lab" - we are thinking, well, they probably didn't scratch it. So what I would say is:

Any customer is welcome to turn up at our premises, any time, unannounced, and see how we handle, and how the equipment handles, you film. I have absolutely no problem with that.

Although, it's best if you do call first and so I can make sure I'm here to give you a tour and explain how the equipment works. I think then, it would be clear that.

srichards - I am confident we did not scratch your film - I can't see any report to us by you of your concerns on our emails or system. Please contact me and I will arrange processing of 3 films free of charge with high res scans.
Glenn - your film was lost by Royal Mail as we had the wrong address. You know we had the wrong address because you moved house and we still had your old address. Your forwarding did not work. It's unfortunate, but true. We have no interest in trying to cover up a mistake - my policy is to hold our hands up if something does go wrong as, in my experience, this works to our favour in the end.

Finally, a quick comment on the two samples posted by FujiLove. Main difference with the two is we have given it more density - in the end personal preference plays a part. Interestingly, when scanning motion picture film it's normal for the director of photography to attend the transfer and tell the colourist how he wants it - we did think about offering "attended scans", might appeal to some people, but it would just slow things down more and I don't think it would be cost effective!
 
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Matthew.

Really appreciate you popping in. It helps no end.
 
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